Luna Brightwood crouched at the edge of the black pine trail with her camera hanging heavy against her chest, and she counted the claw marks gouged into the trunk in front of her. Four deep grooves, fresh, at shoulder height. Something big had marked this path, and she needed to walk it anyway. Her travel book had seven wonders left to photograph before her publisher's deadline, and the frost-blooming lily she wanted grew three miles up this ridge. She had come to this world because the guidebook promised opposites. Sun deserts pressed against snow forests. Warm rivers ran under ice. She had spent two seasons chasing rare things through it, sleeping in a small white cabin at the base of the ridge, waking before light to catch the shots no other photographer had. The lily bloomed only once a year. A branch cracked uphill. Luna dropped flat. Between the trees she saw the animal that had made the marks: a shaggy bear-thing with a second row of horns curving back over its skull. It was pacing the trail like a guard. She lowered the camera. No photograph was worth being torn open for. She backed down the slope and sat against a stump to think. Going home meant losing the lily and the chapter. Going forward meant the horns. She was pulling her map out when a small weight landed on her knee. A purple dragon the size of a soccer ball blinked up at her. Its scales caught the light like cut stone. It sniffed her camera strap, then tugged it toward the trees, away from the trail. Luna hesitated. The dragon tugged again, harder, and chirped. Above her a pale owl dropped from a branch and glided low across the ridge, banking hard away from the bear's territory. Both animals were pointing her the same direction. She followed them. The dragon flew ahead in short bursts. The owl kept pace above the canopy. They led her along a shelf of rock that skirted the guarded trail and dropped her into a hollow she had not seen on any map. In the center of the hollow, a single lily glowed pale pink, its petals open, a thread of sweet-smelling mist curling from its throat. It was the flower she had climbed the ridge for. She had found it a day early, and without the horns. Luna set the tripod. Her hands moved fast because the mist was already making her eyelids heavy. She took the shot, then a second, then a third, and stepped back before the fragrance could pull her down. The dragon settled on her pack. The owl watched from the rim of the hollow. Luna capped the lens and looked at the two animals that had steered her here, and understood she was not photographing this world alone anymore.

Luna woke in the white cabin to the sound of dripping. She stepped outside with her camera bag and found the porch boards dark with water. Overnight the air had turned warm. The frost trails she had mapped up the ridge were softening into mud, and her next subject, a horned white cat that left tracks only on frozen ground, would vanish with them. She had one morning to reach it. The purple dragon crawled out of her pack and sniffed the wet air. The pale owl watched from the eave, feathers flat against the damp. Luna spread her map on the porch and traced the ridge line. The direct route crossed a long meadow already turning to slush. She would sink to her knees before she covered half of it. She needed to move light and stay above the softest ground. She pulled a thin white cape from her gear box, a piece she carried for hides and cold shoots. She tied it tight so it would not drag. Then she pointed at the map and looked at the owl. The bird lifted off and circled once, then flew north along the tree line, away from the meadow. The dragon chirped and followed. Luna ran after them. The owl led her along a spine of rock the thaw had not yet touched. The stone held her weight. She moved fast, camera braced against her ribs, the cape trailing behind her like fog. Twice the dragon dropped to sniff a patch of ground and shook its head, and she stepped wide around it. Below, the meadow steamed. Water pooled in every low place. If she had crossed it she would still be down there, stuck. At the top of the spine, the owl banked and settled on a bare branch. Luna crouched. In a clearing below stood a small white cat with silver and pink horns, its pink tail curled around its paws. It was licking meltwater from a stone. Luna eased the camera up. The cape hid the shape of her shoulders. She took the first shot before the cat lifted its head, a second when it did, and a third as it turned to leave. The horns caught the light clean. She lowered the camera. Her hands were shaking. Somewhere past the clearing, through a gap in the pines, she saw pale towers rising above the trees, white stone streaked with pink in the wet light. She had not known anything like it stood this deep in the woods. She lifted the camera again and took one frame of it, just to prove she had seen it. The dragon landed on her shoulder. The owl called once from the branch above. Luna capped the lens and looked at the towers through the gap. Six wonders left on her list. She had just found a seventh no one had told her about.

Luna came down off the ridge with the horned cat's frames safe in her camera and the pale towers pulling at her from beyond the pines. She wanted a closer shot before the wet light turned. The dragon rode her shoulder. The owl flew ahead, low between the trunks, tracking a path she could not see from the ground. The owl stopped at the edge of a stream. Yesterday this had been a thin frozen channel she could have stepped over. Now it ran fast and brown, waist-high in the middle, carrying broken ice and pine needles. On the far bank the trees thinned and the towers rose, white stone streaked with pink. She could see a flowered archway at the base of the slope, cherry blossoms trailing over pale stone. She wanted that frame badly. Luna knelt and tested the water with her hand. Cold. The current pushed hard against her wrist. Her camera bag was not sealed. One slip and the horned cat frames, the lily frames, every shot from the week would be gone. She sat back on her heels and tried to think of a way to hold the bag above her head across twenty feet of moving water. There was no way that did not risk it. The dragon chirped and lifted off her shoulder. It flew low over the stream, dipped, and came back. Then it tugged at the strap of her camera bag with small claws. She pulled the bag away. The dragon tugged again, harder, and looked at the owl. The owl dropped from its branch and hooked its talons into the top loop of the bag. Luna understood. She unclipped the bag from her hip. She lifted it slowly. The owl beat its wings and took the weight. The dragon steadied the far side with its claws. Together they carried the bag out over the water, wobbling, dipping once so the bottom skimmed the surface, then rising. They set it down on the far bank in the grass. Luna waded in. The water climbed to her thighs, then her waist. The current shoved her sideways twice. She braced on a submerged stone and kept moving. The white dress clung heavy and cold. She reached the far bank shaking, hauled herself up, and grabbed the bag. Dry. She checked the camera body with wet fingers. Dry. She looked up through the trees. The flowered archway stood a short walk ahead, and past it the towers climbed higher than she had guessed from the ridge. A shape moved between two columns, pink and gold, wings folded. Luna wiped her hands on the grass and lifted the camera. Then she heard footsteps in the blossoms on the near side of the arch, light and quick, and a small voice said hello before she saw who was speaking.

Luna lowered the camera an inch and held still. The footsteps in the blossoms came closer. Through the petals she saw a small figure step onto the path, no taller than her knee, with white hair pinned up and pink wings folded neat against a purple dress. The little person waved. Luna waved back, slow. Behind the arch, the winged shape between the columns had not moved. Pink and gold. Wings still folded. Luna could not tell if it was watching her or waiting for something else. The small one tilted her head at Luna's camera. "You point that at her yet?" "Not yet," Luna said. "I don't know what she is." "Her name is her own business. Ask before you shoot." The small one crossed her arms. "Last person came through here lifted a lens without asking. She left. We didn't see her for a season." Luna's hands went cold on the camera body. She thought of every frame she had taken this week without asking, because the subjects were animals, or flowers, or ice. This was different. She could feel it in the way the figure beyond the arch held its shoulders. Not a wonder. A person. She stepped through the arch anyway, because she had to see, and stopped at the edge of a cracked white courtyard scattered with fallen blossoms. Green vines climbed the columns. Overhead the sky ran green and violet in slow bands. The winged figure stood at the far end. Close up, Luna saw a pink coat, gold feathers along the shoulders, a single horn catching the light. A face turned toward her. Calm eyes. Waiting. Luna set the camera down on the broken step at her feet. She raised her empty hands. "I'm Luna," she said. "I take pictures of rare things for a book. May I photograph you?" The figure looked at her for a long moment. Then it shook its head, once. Luna nodded and picked up the camera by the strap, not the grip. She turned away from the courtyard. The dragon on her shoulder made a small sound. The owl watched from a pale bare tree near the wall, perched on a wooden platform half-hidden in the branches. A ladder leaned against the trunk. At the base of the ladder, a small white cat with silver-pink horns sat washing one fluffy paw, watching Luna leave with clear blue eyes. Luna framed the cat in her mind and did not lift the lens. At the arch the small winged one was still waiting. She looked up at Luna with a different face now, softer. "You asked," she said. "That matters here. Come back tomorrow. I'll show you what you're allowed to see." Luna nodded. Her camera hung at her hip, unused, and the towers stayed open to her. She had lost the shot and kept the door.

Luna stepped back through the flowered arch with her camera against her hip. The sky had shifted while she stood in the courtyard. The green and violet bands were darker now, and the light between the towers had gone thin. She had a return invitation for tomorrow, but tomorrow was hours away, and she was standing in open stone with no roof and no plan. Her dress was thin. Her camera body was cold in her hand. She could not sleep on wet marble with the lens exposed to dew. The small winged one had not left. She sat on top of a fallen column now, swinging her bare feet. "You're still here," she said. "I don't know where to go," Luna said. "It's getting dark. I have my camera. I can't let it get wet." The purple dragon on her shoulder pressed closer to her neck. The pale owl clicked its beak once from a broken ledge above. Luna looked at the small one directly. "Is there anywhere near here I can wait until morning? I won't touch anything. I won't lift the lens." The small one studied her for a long moment. Then she hopped down and pointed past the arch, toward a bare white tree Luna had noticed before. A wooden platform sat in its upper branches. A ladder leaned against the trunk. "That's a watch perch," the small one said. "Dry boards. Roof of leaves. You can sit there. Not sleep hard. Just sit. Your bird and your lizard can stay with you. Don't come down until light." Luna crossed to the tree. She tested the ladder with one hand. It held. She climbed with the camera strap tight across her chest and the dragon clinging to her collar. The owl flew up ahead of her and settled on the platform edge. At the top she found rough planks, dry, wide enough to sit on with her knees drawn up. She tucked the camera under the fold of her dress to keep the dew off the lens. Below, movement caught her eye. A pink shape stepped out from between two columns into the last of the light. Gold wings. A gold horn. A mane in bands of color. The unicorn walked slow across the courtyard stones, lifted its head toward the tree, and looked at Luna directly. Luna kept her hands on her knees. She did not touch the camera. The unicorn watched her a moment longer, then walked on and disappeared behind a wall. Luna let her breath out. The dragon curled in her lap. The owl faced outward, eyes open. She had shelter. She had her camera dry. She had seen a creature she was not allowed to photograph, and she had kept her hands still. Tomorrow the small one would come back for her. Tonight she only had to sit, and wait, and not reach for the shot.

Luna sat with her back against the trunk and her camera dry under her dress. The dragon dozed in her lap. The owl kept watch on the far edge of the platform. The aurora above the courtyard had faded to a thin green smear. She was starting to breathe slower when she heard the first crack below. Something heavy shifted in the branches under the platform. Not wind. Not a bird. A branch bent, then another. She heard claws drag on bark. Whatever it was, it was climbing. Luna eased forward on her knees and looked over the edge. She could not see the shape, only a wide dark movement between the lower limbs. It paused. It climbed again. She counted three branches between the thing and her boards. Then two. The dragon woke and pressed flat against her thigh. The owl turned its head down and did not move. She thought about the ladder. If she went down, she would land in the open courtyard in the dark, with no roof and no shelter, and her camera would be wet by morning. If she stayed, the thing would reach the platform in another minute. She had been told not to come down until light. She had also been told the last photographer who broke a rule was never seen again. Luna slid the camera strap over her head and gripped the ladder rail. Then the owl clicked once, sharp, and she stopped. A soft light rose from the branches on the other side of the trunk. Not the aurora. Closer. A small figure lifted into the air beside the platform, wings the color of pink glass, a crown of purple flowers in white hair. "Sit down," Lumina Dewsparkle said. "It's only her." She pointed under the boards. The pink unicorn stepped out from the lower branches onto a thick limb, gold wings folded tight, rainbow mane catching the faint courtyard glow. In her mouth she carried a cloth bundle. She set it on the platform edge and looked at Luna, the same slow look as before. Then she backed down the branches and was gone. Luna opened the cloth with shaking fingers. Eight small eggs lay inside, pale pink and mint and lavender, each one glittering under the aurora. Lumina hovered at her shoulder. "She wants you to guard them tonight," the small one said. "Until light. Then I come for you both." Luna set the bundle beside her knee. She did not lift the camera. She had not been given permission for the eggs either. She pulled her dress over the shells to keep the dew off and put her hand flat on the cloth. The dragon curled around her wrist. The owl faced outward again. Luna sat, and waited, and did not reach for the shot.

Luna kept her hand on the cloth and listened. The dragon breathed against her wrist. The owl watched the courtyard. She thought the worst of the night was over. Then the trunk shook. Something heavy moved at the base of the tree. Not a climb this time. A slow circle. She heard weight press into the roots, then shift, then press again on the far side. Whatever it was, it was walking around the trunk, testing. Luna eased to the platform edge and looked down. The courtyard glow caught a low, wide shape between the roots. She could not see a face. She saw a back like wet stone and a tail that dragged. It stopped under the ladder. It sniffed. Then it set one clawed foot on the bottom rung. Lumina Dewsparkle rose from the branches with her wings tight. "If she climbs, you cannot hold her off," the fairy whispered. "Not with the eggs in your lap." Luna counted the bundle again without looking. Eight shells. Her camera hung against her chest. She could not fight and guard at once. She had to keep the thing on the ground. Luna pulled the ladder up. It was lighter than she expected and slid over the boards with a dry scrape. The shape below hissed and stepped back. It circled again, faster now, scratching at the trunk. The bark was smooth and bare. There were no low branches on this side. Luna watched its claws slip twice and catch nothing. It tried the other side and slipped again. "Hold," Lumina said. She flew down along the trunk and hovered above the creature's head. From a pouch at her waist she shook loose a pale lily, petals open, a thin smoke curling from the center. The smoke sank. The creature lifted its snout, took one breath, then another. Its legs folded. It sat down in the roots. Its head dropped against the bark. It did not move again. Lumina flew back up, tucked the bloom away, and landed on the platform rail. "She will sleep until sunrise," the fairy said. "That is all I had." Luna set the ladder flat along the boards, out of reach from below. She put her hand back on the cloth bundle. The eggs were warm through the fabric. The dragon uncurled and settled against her hip. The owl faced the courtyard again. Below, the heavy shape breathed slow in the roots, harmless now. Luna did not lift the camera. She had kept the eggs safe, and she had done it without a shot. Morning was still hours away, but the tree was hers to hold until light.

Luna watched the eastern sky lighten through the branches. The sleeping shape at the base of the tree had not moved in hours. But the fairy's lily would fail at sunrise, and when the beast woke it would wake angry. Luna sat with the eight glittered eggs in her lap and did the math. The ladder was on the platform. The trunk was smooth. She could not climb down before the light touched the roots. Lumina Dewsparkle landed on the rail. "She wakes with the sun," the fairy said. "You cannot be near the ground when she does." "Then I stay up here," Luna said. "But the eggs need to be off this platform. She smelled them last night. She will smell them again." The pale owl lifted from its perch and flew a slow loop above the courtyard. Luna followed its line and saw a figure step through the flowered arch below. A boy in a silver crown, white cloak, sword at his hip. He looked up at the tree, then at the sleeping beast in the roots. He did not draw the blade. He walked around the trunk once and stopped where the beast's head lay against the bark. "Drop the ladder," he called up. His voice was flat and low. "I will take the eggs. You stay in the tree." Lumina's wings flicked. "That is the prince," she whispered. "Silvain. He watches the ones being hunted. Something has been taking them when he looks away." Luna's hands tightened on the cloth. She had guarded these shells all night. She did not know this boy. But the owl had circled him without alarm, and the small dragon at her hip had not hissed. Luna lowered the ladder. The prince climbed halfway, stopped, and held out both hands. Luna passed the bundle down one egg at a time. He tucked each shell into the fold of his cloak. Eight pastel shapes, glitter catching the first gray light. When the last egg was in his cloak, he met her eyes. "Stay up until the unicorn comes for you," he said. "Do not climb down for any other reason." He descended, stepped past the sleeping beast, and walked back through the arch without looking behind him. The sun touched the top of the trunk. Below, the beast's tail twitched. Its clawed foot scraped a root. Luna pulled the ladder up fast and pressed flat to the boards. The beast lifted its head, sniffed the air where the eggs had been, and found nothing. It circled the tree twice, snarled at the smooth bark, and pushed off into the trees. The roots were empty. The courtyard was quiet. Luna sat back against the trunk. The eggs were gone from her lap, safe in the prince's cloak. She was still in the tree, alive, with her camera untouched at her chest. She waited for the pink unicorn to come back for her.

Luna waited in the tree until the pink unicorn returned. It landed on the platform with a soft click of gold hooves and knelt so she could climb onto its back. The rainbow mane smelled like wet grass. It carried her down in one gliding drop and set her in the middle of the white courtyard, where cherry petals lay thick on the cracked stones and green vines dripped from the arches. The aurora still glowed faint above the towers. The air was warmer than it had been all night. Lumina Dewsparkle hovered at her shoulder. "You have your permission now," the fairy said. "Photograph what you can. The frost blooms opened at first light." Luna lifted her camera. The ornate lens caught the aurora and held it. She turned toward the arches and saw them: small white flowers along the base of every column, each petal edged in a thin line of frost. They were the shot she had traded a night of sleep for. She stepped closer and her boot sank into soft mud. The ground was thawing under the stones. A petal at her feet drooped as she watched, the frost line already melting into a bead of water. She worked fast. She knelt at the first column and framed three blooms against the vines. Click. The gemmed lens hummed under her fingers. She moved to the next arch. Two more blooms had wilted since she crossed the courtyard. The frost was sliding off the petals in wet threads. She could hear water running under the flagstones now, somewhere below. "Luna." Lumina's voice was tight. "The row along the far wall." Luna looked. Half the blooms on that side had already folded flat. She ran. Petals stuck to her wet boots. She reached the archway draped in cherry blossoms and dropped to her knees. Four blooms were still upright. She shot them in a burst, shifted angle, shot again. The fourth bloom collapsed while she was framing it. The third collapsed before she could turn the lens. She got two clean frames of the first two and then there was nothing left on that wall to photograph. A small white cat with silver and pink horns stepped out from behind the column. It sniffed a fallen petal and looked at her with steady blue eyes. Luna raised the camera slowly. The cat did not move. She took one frame. Then a second. The cat flicked its pink tail and walked back into the vines. Luna sat down on the wet stones. The frost blooms were gone from the courtyard, all of them, in the time it had taken to cross from one arch to the next. She had six frames. Two arches worth, and the horned cat she had chased across a melting meadow days ago, come to her now on its own. She lowered the camera into her lap. The thaw had won the courtyard. She had taken what she could before it did.

Luna stayed on the wet stones with the camera in her lap. Six frames of frost blooms. Two of the horned cat. And somewhere beyond the towers, eight dragon eggs she had handed to a stranger before dawn. She had no way to reach him. She did not know where he had taken them. If they hatched and she was not there, she lost a thing no one had ever put on film. She looked up at Lumina Dewsparkle, who hovered above the fallen petals. "The prince," Luna said. "The one who took the eggs. How do I find him?" The fairy folded her wings behind her. "He does not stay in one place when a hunt is on. But he told me where he was taking them. He asked me to bring you when the courtyard was done." Luna stood too fast. Mud pulled at her boots. "Take me now." Lumina lifted a hand. A soft chime moved through the air. The pink unicorn stepped out from under the arch, gold wings half open, rainbow mane damp from the thaw. Luna climbed onto its back. The purple dragon settled on her shoulder. The pale owl landed on the unicorn's neck. They rose over the towers and cut across the wet trees. Luna held the camera against her chest and watched the ground blur. They came down in a clearing she had never seen. A small white hut stood in the middle of it, wrapped in a bubble of pale light that shimmered like a soap film. Prince Silvain waited at the door with his sword still at his hip. He did not smile. "You came in time," he said. He stepped aside and let her in. Inside, on the floor, sat a wide nest woven from braided cloth in every color. Eight eggs lay in it, pastel shells shot through with glitter, each one painted with a tiny unicorn. One shell had a hairline crack running from top to base. Luna knelt. She set the camera on the floor and checked the light through the shimmering wall. It was soft and even. She lifted the camera and framed the cracked egg first. Click. A pink shell split open under the lens. A wet horn pushed through. She shot the second frame, then the third. A second egg cracked. Then a third. She moved around the nest on her knees, changing angle, changing focus, catching each hatchling as it broke free. Prince Silvain stood by the door and watched the clearing outside. He did not turn his head once. When the eighth egg opened, Luna lowered the camera. Eight small unicorns lay in the braided nest, wet and blinking, horns no longer than her thumb. She had every frame. Prince Silvain spoke without looking at her. "Something followed you here. It knows the hut now." He drew the sword an inch and let it drop back. "You cannot leave the field until I know what it is."

Prince Silvain shut the door of the hut behind her. The bubble of pale light closed over the roof again. Luna stood in the wet grass of the field with the camera hot against her ribs. Eight small unicorns slept in the braided nest inside. Something had followed her here. She did not know what. She only knew the prince had drawn his sword an inch and let it drop. "Stay in the open," Silvain said. "If it moves, I need to see it move." He walked a slow line between her and the trees. The purple dragon sat on her shoulder. The pale owl watched from a low branch. Neither made a sound. That told her the thing was not close yet. It also told her the thing was patient. She crouched in the grass and thought. She had walked from the courtyard, then flown on the pink unicorn's back over the wet trees. Nothing on foot could have kept up with wings. So whatever tracked her had come another way, or it had already been near the hut and used her arrival as a marker. She turned the camera over in her hands. The lens caught the light. She almost lifted it to the treeline out of habit. She stopped. A branch cracked at the north edge of the field. Silvain did not turn his head. He kept his eyes on the south. "It wants me to look," he said. "Do not look either." Luna kept her face forward. Her heart hit her ribs. The dragon's claws tightened on her shoulder. The owl lifted one wing and set it down. Still no cry. Then she saw it, at the far south edge, low in the grass. Dark scaled hide. Curved horns swept back over a long skull. Purple veins ran under the plates along its spine. It was not moving toward the hut. It was moving toward Silvain's back while his eyes stayed on the north sound. Luna understood in one beat. The noise at the north was bait. The beast was the hunter. It struck when the prince turned. "South," she said. Just the word. Silvain pivoted without asking. His sword came up in the same motion. The Shadow Hornbeast froze mid-step, one clawed foot lifted, its blue and orange eyes fixed on him. For a long second nothing moved. Then it backed into the trees, slow, watching him the whole way, and was gone. The owl called once, sharp and clean. Silvain lowered the sword halfway. He did not sheathe it. "You saw it before I did," he said. "You named it right." He looked at the treeline where the beast had gone. "It will come back. It knows this hut now, and it knows I am the one guarding it." He turned to her. "I need you to keep watching my back. I cannot do both."

Silvain kept his sword out. Luna stood in the wet grass with her camera at her ribs and watched the treeline where the beast had gone. She could still see the shape of it in her head. Dark plates. Curved horns. Purple veins under the scales. Blue and orange eyes. She had never seen a creature like it in any book. Without a photograph, she could not name it, and she could not warn anyone else about what hunted the hut. "I need a picture of it," she said. "A clear one. Nothing I have is clear." Silvain did not turn. "Then you will not get one from the field. It watches the field. It will not step out again while I stand here." He kept his eyes on the trees. "If you want the shot, you take it from above. It will not look up. Nothing in these woods looks up." Luna looked at the pale owl on the low branch, then at the small purple dragon on her shoulder. Neither was large enough to carry her. She was about to say so when a wide shadow crossed the grass. A gold dragon dropped through the mist and landed between her and the hut. Black horns. Gold wings tipped in black. One eye white, one eye blue. It folded its wings and lowered its neck to her. Silvain nodded once. "He came for the hut. He can carry you above the canopy. Do not shout. Do not use a flash." Luna climbed onto the gold dragon's back and looped the camera strap twice around her wrist. The dragon lifted straight up through the mist. The small hut shrank below her, the shimmer of its bubble still holding. Silvain stood at the field's edge, a bright point in the wet grass. The dragon circled once and slid low over the trees on the south side, quiet as a hand across water. She saw it. The Shadow Hornbeast crouched in a shallow gully, head pointed at the field, waiting for Silvain to turn. Its horns caught the gray light. Luna braced the camera on the dragon's shoulder plate, held her breath, and fired six frames as the dragon banked. She checked the screen. Frame three was sharp. The whole beast, side-on, eyes visible, plates lit clean. She had it. The dragon carried her back to the field and set her down. Luna showed Silvain the screen. His face changed. "That is not a wild beast," he said. "Look at the collar mark under the jaw. Someone sent it." He sheathed his sword halfway, then stopped. "It did not follow you here by chance. It was sent to the hut. To the young ones." He looked at the trees where the beast still waited. "We do not have long. Whoever sent it will send more."

Luna held the camera close and stared at the collar mark on the screen. Silvain had named it a mark of ownership, but the shape itself was a blur. She zoomed in. The pixels smeared into gray. Whoever sent the beast had a face and a name, and she had neither. More would come while she squinted at a bad frame. "I can't read it," she said. "The collar is there, but the sigil is soft. If I can't show anyone what to look for, we're guessing." Silvain took the camera. He held it at arm's length, then close. His mouth went flat. "I know the shape. Not from a book. From a night I did not sleep." He handed the camera back. "There is a man who turned from the light. He keeps to a cloak trimmed in dark red. He commands these beasts. The mark on the collar is his." Luna felt the field tilt. "You're sure." "I am sure," Silvain said. He drew his sword. The blade came out as a clean beam of light, steady as a lamp, and the wet grass around him brightened. The small purple dragon on Luna's shoulder shifted toward the glow. The pale owl on the branch opened both eyes. "He hates this. He hates any light that will not bend. That is why he sends the beasts at me when I look away." A voice came from the trees. Not loud. Flat. "Put it out." The cloaked man stood at the edge of the field, hood pulled forward, dark red trim catching the sword's glow. Two Shadow Hornbeasts crouched behind him, plates gleaming. "The girl's picture is useless. Delete it. Walk to the hut. I will make it quick." Luna did not delete it. She lifted the camera and fired one frame of him, then another. The shutter clicked twice in the wet air. He did not move. "You waste film," he said. "My face is not under the hood in any way your lens can read." Silvain stepped between them. The sword's light pushed forward across the grass, and the two beasts flinched back a pace. The gold dragon dropped from the mist behind Luna and set its claws in the field. Its white eye and blue eye fixed on the cloaked man. He watched the dragon, then the sword, then Luna's camera. He turned and walked into the trees. The beasts followed. Silvain lowered the blade a hand's width. "He will not fight the three of us at once. He will wait." Luna checked her screen. The collar frame was still soft, but the new frame was sharp: cloak, red trim, two beasts at heel. She had a face for the enemy now, even if the face was a hood. "I know who to warn," she said. "And I know he knows my camera works."

Silvain kept the sword raised until the trees stopped moving. Luna stood in the wet grass with the camera against her chest. She had a clear frame of the cloaked man now, and a soft frame of the collar mark, and both were trapped inside a memory card in a field no one could reach. If she waited to hand-deliver them, he would strike first. If she sent them wrong, the beasts would find whoever opened the file. "I need to get these out," she said. "Not later. Now. People who can act on them." Silvain sheathed the blade. The field dimmed. "He watches the roads. He watches the sky. Any rider you send, he will meet." "Then I don't send a rider." Luna crouched and opened her bag. She pulled out the small backup drive she used for field copies and a folded card she had never used: a printed address for the castle archivist, given to her the week she arrived. She copied the two frames onto the drive. She wrote three lines on the back of the card. Cloaked man. Red trim. Sends the horned beasts. She kept it short. Long notes got read slowly. "The owl flies higher than his beasts can climb. The dragon carries weight. Send them together. He can't follow both." Silvain looked at the pale owl on the branch, then at the small purple dragon on her shoulder. "He will try." "Let him try two places at once." Luna tied the drive to the owl's leg with a strip of cloth. She wrapped the card around it. To the small dragon she gave a decoy: a blank card, sealed, tied the same way. "Different routes. Whichever arrives, arrives. If he chases the decoy, the real one gets through. If he chases the real one, the owl outclimbs him." She looked at Silvain. "Can the gold one screen them out?" Silvain whistled once. The gold dragon lifted from the field and climbed above the mist, wings wide, mismatched eyes bright. It banked over the treeline where the cloaked man had walked. From the trees, a lattice of pale light flared open across the canopy, a bright web strung between the branches. It hung there a moment, a trap laid for anything that flew. The gold dragon burned through the edge of it. The lattice snapped and fell in cooling sparks. The pale owl was already gone north. The small purple dragon banked east and vanished into cloud. Luna lowered the empty bag. Her hands shook once and stopped. The photos were moving. She could not call them back. Silvain watched the sky where the lattice had been. "He knew you would send them. He was ready." He looked down at her. "He will come for us before either bird lands."

Silvain's warning still hung in the air when Luna heard the first branch snap at the tree line. Not a beast. A man's step, quick and sure. The cloaked figure was coming through the trees on foot, and he was closer than he had any right to be. The field they stood in had no walls, no ditch, no cover but the low grass and the hut behind them. The hut held eight small unicorns she would not leave. "He's early," Silvain said. He drew his sword. The blade lit before it cleared the sheath, a straight beam of white and gold that pushed the shadow off the grass. "He wants us in the open." Luna turned once, fast, and made herself see the field the way a photographer sees a frame. Grass. Hut. Tree line on three sides. No rocks. No ridge. The gold dragon was still climbing back from burning the sky trap, too far to reach them in time. Her hands were empty. Her camera hung at her hip. She had no wall to put her back against. Then the fairy dropped out of the branches above the hut. Lumina Dewsparkle landed on Luna's shoulder, breathing hard, and pressed something cold into her palm. A hand mirror, cracked into wedges, each shard holding a slice of green and pink light. "Hold it up when he clears the trees," the fairy said. "It throws back what he brings. Only once. Then it is glass." The cloaked man stepped out of the pines. His hood was low. The red trim caught the sword's light and pulled Luna's eye down to his hands. One hand was already raised. "Give me the card," he said. "Then the boy lowers the sword." His voice was flat, closed. Behind him, two horned beasts slid out of the trees and stopped at his heel. Luna lifted the mirror. She did not aim it at him. She aimed it at the sword. The blade's light struck the shards and split, and every wedge threw a lance of white back across the field. The beasts flinched and dropped. The cloaked man turned his face away, one step, two, and in that step Silvain closed the distance and set the point of the sword under the edge of the hood. A long white shape poured down out of the sky behind them, gold-horned, silver-scaled, and coiled once around the hut like a wall. "Walk back," Silvain said. "Now." The cloaked man walked back. He did not run. At the tree line he stopped and looked at Luna over the sword. "The owl will not land," he said, and then the pines took him. The mirror in Luna's hand went dull, the colors gone, the shards only glass. She closed her fingers around it. The field was hers for the moment. The card was still in the sky, and now she knew he had sent something after it.

The pines swallowed the cloaked man, but his words stayed with Luna. The owl will not land. She looked up. The sky above the field was pale and empty except for a thin dark curl far to the east, moving in slow circles. That was the owl. Somewhere between it and her, something was waiting for it to come down. "I need it lower," Luna said. "Now. Before whatever he sent gets close." She had no whistle for the bird. It was trained to fly to the castle, not back to her hand. The card was in a pouch tied to its leg. If it landed in the open field, the cloaked man's next hunter would take the card off its body. Silvain lifted the sword. The blade threw a straight column of white and gold into the sky, brighter than anything else above the trees. "It knows this light," he said. "It flew under it from the castle. Call it with your voice. The light will hold its eye." He did not lower the blade. He did not explain more. Luna cupped her hands and called the owl's name up into the column. Her voice cracked on the second try. The dark curl in the east broke its circle. It tipped, straightened, and came toward the light in a long glide. Behind it, the sky was still empty. Then it was not. A lattice of pale blue and pink lines unfolded above the treetops, wide as a barn door, hanging in the air where nothing had been a moment before. A snare, opened between the owl and the field. The white wyrm above the hut moved before Luna could shout. It poured up out of its coil, gold horns first, and drove straight through the lattice. The snare broke around it in bright shards that fell and went out before they touched the grass. The owl beat once, twice, and dropped through the gap the wyrm had opened. It came down the column of light and struck Luna's raised forearm hard enough to bruise. Its claws caught her sleeve. The pouch was still tied to its leg. Luna's knees folded. She sat down in the grass with the owl against her chest and pulled the pouch free. The card was inside, dry, whole. Behind her the hut door cracked open and eight small unicorns pushed their noses into the light, pink manes and white manes together, wings folded tight. The fairy landed on the owl's back and stroked its feathers flat. "Send it again," Silvain said. He had not lowered the sword. "He knows the card is on the ground now. He will come here for it before it can leave." Luna closed her hand around the card. The sky was clear. The field was not.

Luna pushed the card into the inner pocket of her dress and pressed her palm flat against the cloth. The owl still clung to her sleeve. Silvain kept the sword raised, but the light in the blade was thinning. At the far edge of the field, a shape stepped out of the pines. The cloaked man walked toward them across the open grass. He was not running. He did not need to. There was no fence, no tree, no ditch between him and Luna, and the hut was too far behind her to reach before he closed the gap. "Get behind me," Silvain said. He shifted his boots in the grass. "I can hold him one pass. Not two." Luna did not move behind him. She turned her camera on instead. The lens was already set for the field. She lifted it, framed the cloaked man in the center, and held her thumb on the shutter. She had done this before. It had made him retreat before. He kept walking. He had learned. The fairy lifted off the owl's back. She flew low across the grass toward the cloaked man, and in her small hands she carried a pale lily, petals folded tight, a thin curl of smoke rising from its center. Luna had seen the flower once, in the tree, when it put a beast to sleep until sunrise. The fairy had said it was her only one. She was carrying it out anyway. The cloaked man saw the fairy and raised a hand. A dark line began to form in the air between his fingers. Then the ground behind Luna went bright. The silver wyrm came over the hut in a low pass, wings wide, and breathed a straight bar of white fire across the field. It did not touch the cloaked man. It cut the grass in front of him, black and smoking, a line he would have to step over. He stopped. In the same moment the smaller white wyrm poured down from above and coiled between him and Luna, silver tail trailing light along the burnt line. The fairy reached him. She opened her hands. The lily unfolded and the smoke bloomed up into his hood. He took one step back, then another. His knees bent. He sat down in the grass as if he had chosen to, and then he lay down, and did not get up. The dark line between his fingers came apart and blew away. Silvain lowered the sword. He walked to the sleeping man, knelt, and took a folded cloth from inside the cloak. He held it up so Luna could see. It was a second collar mark, unused. "He was going to send another," Silvain said. He looked at the hut, at the eight small unicorns pressed in the doorway, pink and white manes together. "We have until sunrise. Then he wakes. We move them tonight."

Silvain slid the second collar mark into his belt and stood. The cloaked man lay still in the grass. Sunrise was hours off, but the hut door was open and the eight small unicorns were already picking their way into the field, pink manes and white manes together, silver and pearl wings folded tight. Silvain pointed at a low gap in the trees. "That way. Stay in the open. I'll walk the line." He drew the light-blade again and started along the treeline, sword low, eyes on the pines. Luna slung her white shoulder bag across her chest and knelt to count the babies. Eight. She lifted her camera out of habit, then let it fall against her collar. Not now. She started walking the unicorns toward the gap. The silver wyrm coiled overhead in a wide, slow ring. The smaller white wyrm dropped low and slid along the grass beside the herd, tail trailing a thin silver glow. She saw the movement because she was looking for a shot she couldn't take. A dark shape shifted between two trunks at the edge of the pines, thirty steps from her right shoulder. Horns. Low head. It had not made a sound. Silvain was forty steps the other way, past the hut corner, his back to her. "Silvain," Luna said. Not a shout. A flat, hard word. "Right side. Treeline." He turned at once. He did not ask. He started to run, but the beast was already moving, and it was closer to her than he was. Luna pushed the nearest unicorn behind her hip and lifted her camera. She hit the flash. The white burst punched across the field. The Shadow Hornbeast flinched mid-stride, head jerking sideways, hooves skidding in the wet grass. One heartbeat. Two. The small white wyrm poured off the ground and struck it across the chest. The silver wyrm came down behind it in the same breath and pinned the horns with a foreclaw. A bar of pale fire cut the grass between the beast and the unicorns, black and smoking. Silvain reached them a step later. He drove the light-blade down through the collar at the beast's neck. The mark broke. The body went slack. Silvain wiped the blade on the grass and looked at Luna. "You saw it first." "Flash bought us the second," she said. Her hands were shaking. She tucked them under her arms so the unicorns would not see. Silvain checked the sleeping man once, then the sky, then the gap in the trees. "Move," he said. "Before he sends the next one from where he sleeps." Luna guided the eight small unicorns into the pines. Behind her, the hut stood empty for the first time since the eggs had hatched. She did not look back.

The pines closed around them ten steps past the treeline. Luna kept the eight small unicorns bunched at her knees. The silver-and-gold wyrm circled low above the canopy. The white wyrm slid ahead through the roots, marking a path. Silvain walked at her shoulder, sword banked to a dull glow so it would not throw their shapes on the trunks. The camera hung against Luna's chest on its narrow strap, lens forward, unprotected. A unicorn spooked at a snapping branch and bolted sideways. Luna lunged after it. The camera swung out and cracked against a pine. She caught the strap, spun the body back, and thumbed the lens cap. A hairline scratch ran across the glass. Not through it. She let out a breath. "That won't hold," Silvain said. "You need both hands. They'll scatter." "I know." Luna looked at the bag on her hip. It was cloth. One shoulder strap. Made for a memory card and a lunch, not a body and a lens. She pulled the camera off her neck and tried to fit it inside. The lens hood caught on the flap. If she forced it, she'd bend the ring. If she left it out, the next branch would take the glass. A soft light bloomed between two trunks ahead. The purple fairy stepped out of the air onto a low branch, wings folded. Beside her, taller than the fairy by a head, stood an elf in white robes, gold chains crossed at her brow. She held a flat leather case against her chest. "Lumina Dewsparkle sent me," the elf said. "I am Silvana Aurelith. She said your hands were full." She held the case out. "Padded. Strap crosses the chest. It will not swing." Luna took it. The case was stiff, lined with dark cloth, cut exactly for a camera body and one spare lens. She slid the camera in. The lid clicked. She looped the strap over her head and one arm. The weight settled flat against her back. Both hands free. She flexed her fingers and reached for the nearest unicorn's mane. "Why you?" Silvain said to the elf. "I was given something to read," Silvana said. "The wrong people know I have it. Lumina asked me to move while I still could. I brought the case on the way." She did not explain more. The fairy above her nodded once and rose into the branches. Silvain pointed down the slope. Luna clicked her tongue and the eight unicorns moved. Her hands closed around two manes at once. The camera rode her spine, out of the way, safe. Behind her, Silvana Aurelith kept pace with the herd, the leather case at her own hip now holding only what she had come with. Ahead, the white wyrm's tail lit the roots. Luna walked into the trees with both hands on her animals for the first time since the hut.

The ground sloped down through the pines. Luna kept one hand on a pink mane and one on a white. The eight small unicorns pressed close, but their steps were shorter now. Two of them stumbled over a root. Silvana walked at the rear, watching the trail behind. Silvain slowed and looked at the herd. "They won't make another hour," he said. "We need a place. Now." Luna scanned the trees. Nothing but more trees. "I don't know where we are." "Neither do I," Silvain said. "I know what's chasing us. That's all." He glanced at the silver wyrm gliding above the branches. Its gold and black wings caught the low light. Fire trailed from its jaws in a thin white line. "She knows this stretch better than I do." He raised one hand. The wyrm dipped, banked, and swept ahead through a gap in the pines. It called back once, low and clear. They followed. The unicorns kept up because the wyrm's light pulled them forward. Silvana closed the gap at Luna's shoulder. "She's leading us somewhere," the elf said. "I don't know where." She kept her eyes on the trees. "But she isn't guessing." Luna nodded and clicked her tongue at the smallest unicorn, the one with pearl-toned wings, who kept lagging. The pines opened. A round clearing spread in front of them, ringed by old stone. In the center stood a small gold farmhouse. A clear dome arched over it, faint blue lines running along the surface like water. A wooden stair climbed to a narrow porch. Beside the stair sat a polished silver box, open at the top, packed with hay and grass and cut fruit. An orange had rolled onto the moss. The wyrm landed on the roof and folded its wings. Luna stopped at the edge of the dome. She put a hand against it. The surface was warm and firm and gave nothing. "It's sealed." "It opens for them," Silvain said. He nodded at the unicorns. The nearest one walked past Luna's knee, straight through the dome as if it were open air, and climbed the stair. The others followed, one by one. The smallest paused at the box, lipped a piece of apple, then went up. When the last white tail passed through, the dome closed behind it, whole again. Luna pressed her palm to the surface. It held. Inside, the eight unicorns were already lying down on the porch boards. Silvain sheathed his sword. "They're safe here. The wyrm will stay." He looked at Luna and Silvana. "We can't go in. Only they can." Luna lowered the camera case strap off her shoulder and set it against a stone. Her hands were empty for the first time in a day. Behind the dome, the wyrm's fire pulsed once against the gold roof, steady, and did not go out.

Luna kept her palm on the dome for a long moment. The eight small unicorns slept on the porch in a heap. Her camera case sat by the stone. She turned to Silvain. "The card is still in the camera. No one has seen the pictures. If he catches up before we send them, none of this matters." Silvain nodded once. "Then we send them now." Silvana knelt by the case and unbuckled it. "There's a photo lab past the ridge, an hour on foot. I've been there. The owner develops for the fairy court." She looked up. "He can pull the card and print. Once prints exist, the pictures exist." Luna lifted the camera out. The lens caught the low light and threw a green spark across her wrist. Her hands shook a little. She hadn't eaten since dawn. "We can't all go," Silvain said. "The wyrm stays with the unicorns. I stay with the wyrm. He'll come for the dome the second I leave it." He looked at Silvana. "You know the path. Take her." Silvana stood. She checked the trees behind them, then the sky. "He's still asleep. The lily bought us until sunrise. Maybe less." A few pink petals still clung to her sleeve from the fairy's last bloom. She brushed them off. They moved. Silvana went first along a deer track through pine and low fern. Luna kept the camera against her chest inside the padded case, one hand on the strap, one free. Twice Silvana stopped and raised a fist and they crouched. Once for a shadow that turned out to be a fox. Once for nothing they could see. The second time Silvana whispered, "Keep going. Don't run. Running makes noise." The ridge dropped into a shallow cut in the woods. A small shop sat at the bottom, windows lit, camera bodies and film boxes stacked behind the glass. A painted sign read PHOTO STUDIO. Silvana knocked twice, paused, knocked once. The door opened a hand's width. An older man in an apron looked past them at the trees, then stepped back and let them in. Luna set the camera on the counter and pulled the card. "All of it," she said. "Every frame. As many prints as you can make. Fast." He took the card without a word and went through a curtain to the back. Luna heard water, then a fan. Silvana stood at the window with her back to the glass. Minutes passed. The man returned with a stack of wet prints between two boards. The cloaked man's face stared up from the top sheet, red trim, collared beast at his heel. "Six sets," he said. "I'll send four by runner tonight. Court, guard, north watch, the fairy." He slid two sets to Luna. "These are yours." Luna held the prints against her chest. The warning was out of her hands now. Outside, above the pines, a thin line of smoke rose from the direction of the clearing. Silvana saw it too. "He's awake," she said. "And he knows where Silvain is."

Luna stepped out of the shop with the prints against her chest. The smoke was thin but steady, rising straight up over the pines. Silvana pulled the door shut behind them. "An hour back on foot," she said. "Maybe less if we cut the ridge." Luna shook her head. "He'll hear us coming. If we walk in blind, he takes us and the prints." She looked at the sky. "We need eyes first. We need to see the clearing before he sees us." Silvana was quiet a moment. Then she whistled once, low, two notes. Nothing moved. She whistled again. A shape dropped through the pines and landed light on the path in front of them, hooves quiet on the needles. A pale purple pegasus, wings folded, deep purple patches across her flank. "Lumina keeps her near the lab," Silvana said. "For runs the runners can't make." Luna slid the prints into the padded case beside the camera. She climbed on behind Silvana. The pegasus lifted them above the trees in three beats. The wind pushed Luna's hair back. She kept one hand on the case and one on Silvana's belt. Below, the forest turned into a dark quilt, and the smoke line grew thicker where it met the clearing. "High," Luna said. "Stay above the smoke. I want the long lens." Silvana leaned forward and the pegasus climbed. Luna pulled the camera free with one hand, braced the lens on her forearm, and looked through it. The dome sparkled in the clearing like a bead of glass. The unicorns were inside, small shapes on the porch. Silvain stood on the steps outside the dome, sword drawn. The blade threw a hard white light across the grass. The cloaked man stood at the treeline, red trim bright against the pines. Two Shadow Hornbeasts crouched at his sides. Luna clicked through frames. Positions, distances, the gap between Silvain and the beasts. She counted. Two beasts, not more. The cloaked man had not moved yet. He was waiting for something, or someone. "He hasn't attacked," she said. "He's watching the sword." Silvana nodded. "He learned it hurts him. He's looking for the angle." Luna lowered the camera. "We don't land near Silvain. We land behind the cloaked man. If the pegasus drops us in the trees behind him, he's between two blades." Silvana looked at her. "You have no blade." "I have the flash," Luna said. "It worked before. It buys Silvain one second. One second is what he needs." Silvana held her eyes, then spoke to the pegasus. The pegasus banked wide around the clearing, staying above the smoke, and began her descent into the pines behind the cloaked man's back. Luna gripped the camera. The prints were safe in the case. Silvain was still standing. The plan was set. The pegasus dropped through the branches, and the clearing came up to meet them.